Fayaz Bukhari
SRINAGAR, Apr 3: As Kashmir based militant commanders failed to carry out attacks in Jammu and Kashmir, their handlers across have changed their strategy to go for attacks near the Line of Control (LoC) and International Border (IB) on Army, Border Security Force (BSF) and other security installations involving freshly infiltrated militants.
Sources said that Pakistan based handlers of Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT) and Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM) commanders in Kashmir have changed their tactics for 2015 to carry out attacks in Jammu and Kashmir by involving freshly infiltrated militants.
The LeT commanders – Abu Hurraira, Mohammad Qasim and Walid, Pathan – operating in Central, South and North Kashmir respectively and Southern commander of JeM, Adil Pathan and Northern Commander of JeM, Saifullah, have failed to come upto the expectations of their handlers in Pakistan due to extreme security force pressure on them. Last year 101 militants were killed by security forces with 59 killed by Army on the LoC while they were infiltrating into Kashmir.
These commanders in Kashmir were under tremendous pressure from their handlers to sabotage Parliamentary and Assembly elections that were held in the middle and towards end of the last year respectively in which people in large numbers took part.
As per security agencies these commanders tried their level best to carry out attacks to sabotage elections but failed in their designs. This forced their handlers across to send fresh infiltrators who attacked an Army camp in Mohra during last year’s Assembly elections in which record number of voters exercised their franchise in the first phase of polls in November last year.
Eight Army personnel and three police men were killed in the fidayeen attack carried out on Mohra Army camp in Uri on December 5. Six militants who had infiltrated a day before were also eliminated by the Army in their operation.
Sources said that keeping in view the pressure that is on 200 militants operating in Kashmir valley, their handlers in Pakistan have changed their strategy. As per the new strategy, the militants are planning to carry out Mohra and Kathua type of attacks in which the militants infiltrated from across the LoC and IB and carried out attacks on the same day or next day of their infiltration.
Sources said that Mohra (December 2014) and Kathua (March 2015) type of attacks were sample cases in which LeT and JeM jointly took part. They said that there will be few groups of infiltrators jointly launched by LeT and JeM who will now carry out fidayeen attacks as soon as they infiltrate.
General Officer Commanding (GOC) 15 Corps, Lt General Subrata Saha told Excelsior that there is lot of pressure on militants in Valley and how they deal with this pressure is to be seen.
“The counter terrorism grid is too strong and they are not able to do what they wish. If you see of this year, 2015, three months have passed 10 terrorists have been eliminated including a leader in Tral. And the replacement was also eliminated. There is lot of pressure and in order to deal with the pressure how they are going to respond, we have to wait and see. Once the snow melts, the infiltration challenge manifests on the ground”, Lt General Saha said.
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